Rockbox does the library management itself. Drop your music on the player, and it will index everything for you when you boot it. It does it in a background thread, so you can still listen to music and play games while it's updating the database.
If you're not familiar, Rockbox is seriously awesome. It supports Ogg / FLAC / Apple Lossless / WAV / AIFF / MP3 / MIDI / MOD / (many others that I don't use), and has software DSP for crossfade, gapless playback, crossfeed (makes headphones sound a bit more like speakers), "party mode", pitch and speed adjustment, software EQ, hardware EQ, cool games (Frozen Bubble!), etc., etc. Everything is very customizable (and themable). You can even customize exactly what happens when you unplug your headphones (I have mine pause, and when you plug them back in it rewinds by one second and restarts playback; much better than Apple's default approach).
Anyway, check it out. It's worth the slight difficulty in installing.
Even if you're right, you'll still be fired and have 1000s of dollars of legal bills. My advice is to get a job somewhere sane instead. There are plenty of code monkeys that can write insecure proprietary software, but the number of people that can write good open source software is much lower. Hence, finding some place to use that skill will probably get you a better job anyway.
> Your cable bill is paying for ACCESS, not for the production of all the content.
Really? Then why does it cost more to get more channels? If your assertion is true, then it should cost the same no matter how many channels your cable box is authorized to decrypt.
Also, who pays for ACCESS to broadcast stations? There's the same quantity of ads on cable as there is on broadcast TV.
Causing a computer program to take a branch that wasn't anticipated by its designers and searing someone's flesh off are not really two things you can compare. Cute, though...
> Talk about overkill. Don't the US army have any sharpshooters enlisted, or was it just more convenient to use the handy tank ?
Heh, one of my favorite things to do in UT2004 was to snipe people with the tank. Glad to see that it works in real life, with the same results. (MMMMONSTER KILL!)
I see you logged into slashdot with your slashdot password. If you never whitelist anying, how can you trust that this site is really slashdot? If it has a SSL cert, how can you trust the CA? How can you trust the algorithm? How can you trust your eyes?
Whitelisting is a fine idea. "Trust until someone complains" is a great model in the real world.
> Exactly how would you suggest Google securely authenticate every web page on the Internet, not for identity, but for intent?
If I knew, I'd write my own search engine and kill Google -- not post it to a slashdot discussion. However, I don't know:) That's Google's job to figure out -- blacklisting random sites doesn't help anyone, and it hurts Google's credibility (which is what 100% of their income is based on).
> Google is at war with search engine spammers. When google de-lists somebody for spamming their search engine, if they gave a specific reason why then all the spammers would do is tweak their spam farm and be up and running in a couple of hours.
Security through obscurity is no security at all. The spammers already know Google's weaknesses -- that's why there's so much spam everywhere.
I disagree with the grandparent's claim that accurate digital sampling is expensive. Take a look at the GNU Radio, which can sample 2.4GHz+ signals accurately, all for under $500. I've certainly seen people pay more than $500 for recording equipment, and that can "only" sample at 44KHz!
Draw two signals: a 22.05KHz sine wave and a 22.05KHz triangle wave. Now draw the result of Nyquist-Shannon sampling them both. Can you honestly say that's a perfect recording?
The triangle wave can be expressed as a sum of sine waves. The sine waves that impart the triangular shape are all above the 22.05KHz cutoff, and thus you can't hear them. So while although it's not a perfect recording, all the data below the 22.05KHz that you can actually hear is intact.
> since almost anyone can hear the differences between different digital formats
He's not talking about formats, he's talking about the way samples are recorded. Each sample is a number from 0 to 2^16-1. He's saying that human ears can't hear the difference between 2^16-1 and 2^16-2 (and so on, down to 0). This means that there's no point in adding more bits to each sample, since you can't hear the difference anyway. (The only reason to add more bits is if you have a really small signal and you're going to amplify it. Try listening to music through an amp fed by a digital amp, but with your music player digitally reducing the volume. Sounds really weird, because you're reducing the number of bits.)
> Red Book audio, the standard for CDs, is not the highest quality humans can hear
Any proof here? I don't have anything to test with personally, but considering that CDDA can sample any sound that your ears can, and that each level is represents is indistinguishable from other levels by your ears, it's probably pretty close to perfect. The output of a CD and a live performance will look different on an oscilloscope, but they'll probably sound the same through your ears.
Americans have a tendency of butchering English completely.
Such things as "anyways" or "could care less" Sadly - they just don't care - sure they might sound stupid when they say it - and that's fine, we all make mistakes, it's when you correct them and they insist they don't care or their way is right.
Americans think the British (and Australian) variants of English sound odd, too. "Boot"? That's a thing that goes on my foot, you idiot:)
The sooner you start thinking of those variants of English as separate languages, the sooner you can start worrying about a more important problem. One doesn't complain about Spanish speakers not using British English... why would one be concerned that speakers of American English aren't speaking British English? I don't see the difference, other than that American English has borrowed a lot more words from British English than has Spanish.
(And BTW, I don't know of anyone who uses either of those terms above. Maybe you only have opportunities to interact with dumb people?;)
Good post. Most of the above points are things the computer should do properly -- the user shouldn't have to work around insecurity on the Internet.
JS/Java interpreters should not be able to enter a state where they can damage the user's computer. Maybe they'll crash the tab that they were loaded from, but that's it. This isn't quite how things work today, but software can be improved. Firefox and Java are open source, so that makes finding and fixing any insecurity easier.
The same goes for clicking links in e-mail. You should be able to click any link. The worse thing that can happen is you think the site is your banks (sorry, you're just dumb), or you get the goatse guy. Get over it and move on -- clicking a link should not cause any code execution on your computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Rockbox does the library management itself. Drop your music on the player, and it will index everything for you when you boot it. It does it in a background thread, so you can still listen to music and play games while it's updating the database.
If you're not familiar, Rockbox is seriously awesome. It supports Ogg / FLAC / Apple Lossless / WAV / AIFF / MP3 / MIDI / MOD / (many others that I don't use), and has software DSP for crossfade, gapless playback, crossfeed (makes headphones sound a bit more like speakers), "party mode", pitch and speed adjustment, software EQ, hardware EQ, cool games (Frozen Bubble!), etc., etc. Everything is very customizable (and themable). You can even customize exactly what happens when you unplug your headphones (I have mine pause, and when you plug them back in it rewinds by one second and restarts playback; much better than Apple's default approach).
Anyway, check it out. It's worth the slight difficulty in installing.
> Or am I thinking incorrectly here?
Even if you're right, you'll still be fired and have 1000s of dollars of legal bills. My advice is to get a job somewhere sane instead. There are plenty of code monkeys that can write insecure proprietary software, but the number of people that can write good open source software is much lower. Hence, finding some place to use that skill will probably get you a better job anyway.
also ipw3945.
Sure would be nice if you sent in a patch.
> Your cable bill is paying for ACCESS, not for the production of all the content.
Really? Then why does it cost more to get more channels? If your assertion is true, then it should cost the same no matter how many channels your cable box is authorized to decrypt.
Also, who pays for ACCESS to broadcast stations? There's the same quantity of ads on cable as there is on broadcast TV.
Causing a computer program to take a branch that wasn't anticipated by its designers and searing someone's flesh off are not really two things you can compare. Cute, though...
> Talk about overkill. Don't the US army have any sharpshooters enlisted, or was it just more convenient to use the handy tank ?
Heh, one of my favorite things to do in UT2004 was to snipe people with the tank. Glad to see that it works in real life, with the same results. (MMMMONSTER KILL!)
I think Oxygen is written on top of Eclipse, but it's not OSS.
I see you logged into slashdot with your slashdot password. If you never whitelist anying, how can you trust that this site is really slashdot? If it has a SSL cert, how can you trust the CA? How can you trust the algorithm? How can you trust your eyes?
Whitelisting is a fine idea. "Trust until someone complains" is a great model in the real world.
> If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns...does that somehow make you feel more safe?
... armed attacker. You shoot at him, he shoots at you. You both die -- that's two deaths.
Sure! Let's say you are armed and are attacked by an
If you were unarmed and defenseless, only you would die. So as you can see, banning guns reduces gun fatalaties by 50%!
> Exactly how would you suggest Google securely authenticate every web page on the Internet, not for identity, but for intent?
:) That's Google's job to figure out -- blacklisting random sites doesn't help anyone, and it hurts Google's credibility (which is what 100% of their income is based on).
If I knew, I'd write my own search engine and kill Google -- not post it to a slashdot discussion. However, I don't know
Even better than Oxygen is nxml-mode for emacs, written by James Clark (of expat fame).
http://www.thaiopensource.com/nxml-mode/
> Google is at war with search engine spammers. When google de-lists somebody for spamming their search engine, if they gave a specific reason why then all the spammers would do is tweak their spam farm and be up and running in a couple of hours.
Security through obscurity is no security at all. The spammers already know Google's weaknesses -- that's why there's so much spam everywhere.
Good post.
I disagree with the grandparent's claim that accurate digital sampling is expensive. Take a look at the GNU Radio, which can sample 2.4GHz+ signals accurately, all for under $500. I've certainly seen people pay more than $500 for recording equipment, and that can "only" sample at 44KHz!
The triangle wave can be expressed as a sum of sine waves. The sine waves that impart the triangular shape are all above the 22.05KHz cutoff, and thus you can't hear them. So while although it's not a perfect recording, all the data below the 22.05KHz that you can actually hear is intact.
> since almost anyone can hear the differences between different digital formats
He's not talking about formats, he's talking about the way samples are recorded. Each sample is a number from 0 to 2^16-1. He's saying that human ears can't hear the difference between 2^16-1 and 2^16-2 (and so on, down to 0). This means that there's no point in adding more bits to each sample, since you can't hear the difference anyway. (The only reason to add more bits is if you have a really small signal and you're going to amplify it. Try listening to music through an amp fed by a digital amp, but with your music player digitally reducing the volume. Sounds really weird, because you're reducing the number of bits.)
> Red Book audio, the standard for CDs, is not the highest quality humans can hear
Any proof here? I don't have anything to test with personally, but considering that CDDA can sample any sound that your ears can, and that each level is represents is indistinguishable from other levels by your ears, it's probably pretty close to perfect. The output of a CD and a live performance will look different on an oscilloscope, but they'll probably sound the same through your ears.
When YOU capitalize EVERY other WORD in YOUR sentence, your COMMENT becomes HARD to READ.
> So what are you, some kind of racist?
Apples have race?
> Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Yeah, I know. My backspace and C-w keys are broken, so all typos are the dog's fault, not mine!
Have you read the source code to iTunes or the iPod firmware? If not, how can you be sure that Apple won't break your iPod at any time?
Because you voted for someone who thought that would be a good idea. Welcome to democracy. Great, isn't it?
Americans think the British (and Australian) variants of English sound odd, too. "Boot"? That's a thing that goes on my foot, you idiot
The sooner you start thinking of those variants of English as separate languages, the sooner you can start worrying about a more important problem. One doesn't complain about Spanish speakers not using British English... why would one be concerned that speakers of American English aren't speaking British English? I don't see the difference, other than that American English has borrowed a lot more words from British English than has Spanish.
(And BTW, I don't know of anyone who uses either of those terms above. Maybe you only have opportunities to interact with dumb people?
Now that he can't have a Segway (at a cost of US $3000 or whatever), he won't be evil anymore! The people of North Korea are saved!
Nope, not nearly as fun. The sooner commercial e-mail dies, the better.
Good post. Most of the above points are things the computer should do properly -- the user shouldn't have to work around insecurity on the Internet.
JS/Java interpreters should not be able to enter a state where they can damage the user's computer. Maybe they'll crash the tab that they were loaded from, but that's it. This isn't quite how things work today, but software can be improved. Firefox and Java are open source, so that makes finding and fixing any insecurity easier.
The same goes for clicking links in e-mail. You should be able to click any link. The worse thing that can happen is you think the site is your banks (sorry, you're just dumb), or you get the goatse guy. Get over it and move on -- clicking a link should not cause any code execution on your computer.